The Cable Guy

THE CABLE GUY (Columbia Pictures)
Director: Ben Stiller
Producers: Andrew Licht, Jeffrey A. Mueller, Judd Apatow
Executive Producers: Brad Grey, Bernie Brillstein, Marc Gurvitz
Screenwriter: Lou Holtz, Jr.
Cast: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann, George Segal, Diane Baker, Jack Black

Quick Review: Help! It's happened. I'm out of touch. At least, I suppose that's the problem. What I DO know is that I have NO idea what's going on in this film. I mean, is it a standard Jim Carrey rubber-faced comedy? No. He does his Jerry Lewis of the '90s routine, but it's too dark, too mean, and too sad to be comedic. Is it a suspense thriller, like CAPE FEAR? There are elements, as in the threatening overtones to Broderick and the manipulation of the people around him, but nobody is ever in any real danger of dying. Is it a spoof? Certainly, you spend a lot of time laughing at situations that are treated soberly in other films, but this film clearly wants to be taken seriously on some level. So, what IS it? How about this: it's a tragicomedy -- that genre primarily seen in plays, like those of Chekhov (no, not the STAR TREK guy), where the idiocies and minor tragedies of daily life are held up for us to observe and ridicule. Yes, that's good. It sounds smart, at least.

Rating (on a four-star scale): TWO AND A

HALF


PJim Carrey interview.
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